Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is the most common problem that affects sleep. People with this
problem have their airway blocked or minimized, causing snoring or gasping while sleeping. It
can also reduce the amount of oxygen that circulates in the blood of people affected by it.
Millions of Americans have OSA; 10% of adults have diagnosed OSA, an estimated 25% have
undiagnosed OSA. There is concern in the medical community about how to manage pain in
patients with OSA because of the risk of decreased or slower breathing associated with
certain pain medications called opioids. Giving OSA patients opioids could cause them to have
even lower oxygen amounts in their blood stream. It is conceivable that patients with OSA may
require lower doses of opioids to cause decreased breathing as compared to patients without
OSA, however this has not been proven. In this study, we are using a very short acting and
easily reversible opioid pain medication called remifentanil in patients with OSA in order to
find out if treated and untreated OSA patients respond to opioid differently than patients
without OSA.